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Summary: Run Free

Rich September 18, 2014 No Comments

Last night I spent four hours without my iPhone. Four conscious hours, to be specific. It was wonderful. I realize that may sound strange, but I bet the majority of you reading this nearly always have a phone within hearing range, if not actively grasped in your hand or stuffed in a pocket where you obsessively check it every now and then, when the slightest breeze triggers the vibration nerves in your upper thigh. Maybe the Apple Watch will fix that last one. Unlike most of you I have been living with pagers, radios, and other on-call devices since around 1991. Due to my involvement in emergency services, I was effectively on-call continuously for years at a time. No, I was not required to show up, but between paid and volunteer gigs you just get used to always being in touch. It was also an amazing way to get out of crappy dates. But somehow my public service commitment slowly transitioned to having my phone on or near me at nearly all times. Part of this is due to my inherent geekiness, some an effect of running my own business, a smidge from being a parent, and plenty from a developed habit that isn’t necessarily the most positive psychological development. Practically speaking I do need to have my phone near me quite a bit, especially during working hours. Even when I am blocking out distractions, the folks I work with need to be able to get a hold of me if something important comes up – especially since I manage all our IT. And with a family of 5 there is a lot to coordinate. I even need it on longer workouts for safety – I run in the desert, ride my bike far from home (sometimes an hour away by car) and go on excursions in new cities. Is my phone a necessity? No, I did all that before having a phone, but I also got into some dicey situations. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be all the time. I used to catch a break when I was on mountain rescues or ski patrol. But not only do I not participate in those any more, cell coverage is far better than you would expect unless you go really deep into the backcountry. Or need to make a call on AT&T in New York City. Last night I was in San Jose for the Cloud Security Alliance conference. After teaching a developer class I met up with a friend who is also a runner (better than me). We went out for a nice four miles, and decided to grab some beer and burritos without swinging back for our stuff (she had cash). Between the run, slow service, and finding food, it was nearly four hours before we re-attached our digital leashes. This wasn’t some sort of existential event. But it was nice to be out of touch for a while, and not worry about it. And even better that it didn’t involve some massive excursion to evade cell towers. A run, two beers, a burrito, and then back home. No Yelp to check reviews, Siri to find the closest burrito, email interruptions, or text messages. We survived, as did our children and businesses. Go figure. On to the Summary: Webcasts, Podcasts, Outside Writing, and Conferences Rich quoted in USA Today on payments. Rich also quoted in The Guardian on Apple Pay. Adrian quoted on Sentrix. Not that the rest of us know who that is. Adrian quoted on Apple Pay at TechTarget. Rich on the ThreatPost podcast with Dennis Fisher. I always love talking with him. He lets me use bad words. Favorite Securosis Posts Mike Rothman: Secure Agile Development: Process Adjustments. Adapting to the situation is always challenging. Adrian and Rich go into how to adapt Agile development when things need to be tuned a bit. Adrian Lane: Firestarter: Apple Pay. Rich: Fix Something. No matter how good you are at poking holes and pointing fingers, I respect those who try to fix things more. Other Securosis Posts Incite 9/17/2014: Break the Cycle. New Paper! The Security Pro’s Guide to Cloud File Storage and Collaboration. Favorite Outside Posts Mike Rothman: And so there must come an end. Really inspiring post on handling the end of life with grace. Charley documented her battle against cancer and wrapped up the story in a way that reminds us of the impermanence of everything. Adrian Lane: OWASP Top 10 is Overrated. The author is clear that this is flame bait, but correct that the focus has shifted to the top 10, without understanding reaching beyond that simple list. The point of OWASP was community awareness, but they stumbled across what everyone in the press knows: people want distilled information. Rich: I’m picking my own post on Apple Privacy at Macworld from back in June. Why? Well, Tim Cook’s statement on privacy might be one reason. Research Reports and Presentations The Security Pro’s Guide to Cloud File Storage and Collaboration. The 2015 Endpoint and Mobile Security Buyer’s Guide. Analysis of the 2014 Open Source Development and Application Security Survey. Defending Against Network-based Distributed Denial of Service Attacks. Reducing Attack Surface with Application Control. Leveraging Threat Intelligence in Security Monitoring. The Future of Security: The Trends and Technologies Transforming Security. Security Analytics with Big Data. Security Management 2.5: Replacing Your SIEM Yet? Defending Data on iOS 7. Top News and Posts Home Depot hack may have exposed 56 million credit card numbers. I think we have our inflection point now. Ping Identity Scoops $35M To Authenticate Everywhere. The NSA Spied on German Telecoms. Chinese Penetrate TRANSCOM Amid Lack of Data Sharing. Long term penetration of US military logistics chain. Nice. Critical updates for Adobe Reader and Acrobat. Share:

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